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Thursday, March 24, 2011

The biggest buffoon in law enforcement.

Maricopa County (AZ) Sheriff Joe Arpaio is one of the biggest buffoons in law enforcement. The Sheriff is contemptuous of the Constitution and and the idea of limited government. He likes to pull publicity stunts that cost the taxpayers millions of dollars per year, just to keep his name in the news. Watch this.

Arpaio, with the B actor Steven Segal in tow, along with a Hollywood film crew to record his antics, used armored vehicles, including a tank, along with a SWAT team to arrest one single, peaceful man who was home alone. His crime was cock fighting. Yep, the man ran cock fights, didn't own a gun and was never known to be violent. A troop of Girl Scouts could have arrested the man, but not the sissy-force under the command of Sheriff Joe: America's Most Arrogant Thug.

Arpaio has done television shows before where he brings in the cameras to play up his antics. Joe's thugs are known to be violent and racist and prisoners in his command have been so badly beaten, or killed, by his armed gang of sheriffs that he has cost Maricopa County millions of dollars in settlement costs to victims, or to their families.

Arpaio was also closely connected to the corrupt County Attorney, Andrew Thomas, and his assistant Rachel Alexander, who both left office after the Bar Associations investigation showed that Thomas used his legal powers to harass political opponents. In addition the FBI began investigating Thomas as well. The independent investigation of Arpaio's buddy charged 30 ethics violations. Included in that was Thomas, with the help of Arpaio, arresting political opponents on trumped up charges. Judges who ruled against the team were then threatened with legal action for being "corrupt" by Thomas.

Fox News reported that just as Arpaio's gung-ho stunts have cost millions, the "bogus investigations" of Thomas will mean "Maricopa County will likely pay out tens of millions of dollars." Both Thomas and Arpaio have misused their office to threaten political opponents and to imply they are criminals or corrupt.

Arpaio has used armored tanks for non-violent offenses before. In one raid, which I believe was over numerous traffic tickets, the Sheriff's SWAT team, including the tank, attacked a home in Phoenix. They started out by firing tear gas into the house which set it afire. A small puppy that tried to escape the flames was chased by the Sheriffs back into the burning building where it died. But the moronic thugs forgot to put the tank in park, or whatever you have to do to secure a tank. The several ton vehicle started rolling down an incline toward a bunch of parked cars. A mother, with her young infant in the front, barely escaped their vehicle before the Sheriff's toy crushed it. A few second sooner and mother and child would have been killed—all over parking tickets so Sheriff Joe can brag about being America's toughest sheriff. Fascism is as fascism does.

One has to ask how many tens of thousands of dollars were spent by Arpaio just so he could strut in front of TV cameras with a has-been, never-too-good actor. There was no need for tanks and armored vehicles, no heed for a "deputizing" a fake sheriff simply because his "reality" TV show will get you publicity. There was no need to destroy the man's gates, smash his widows and destroy his property. It was all the pompous publicity-seeking strutting of America's worst sheriff, Joe Arpaio.